Household appliances, including refrigerators, ovens, microwave ovens, dish-washers, clothes washers, clothes dryers, and freezers can be hazardous to infants, mentally impaired adults, and household pets. Storage cabinets and drawers can contain hazardous chemicals and tools. Electrical outlets can be hazardous for small children. Households with toddlers and mentally impaired persons frequently require latches or locks to be placed on certain cabinets, drawers, appliances, electrical outlets, and/or appliance controls to prevent injury to developing or impaired members of the household. Commercial appliances and equipment such as autoclaves, elevators, x-ray machines, lathes, saws, and presses can be hazardous when operated by unauthorized or trained personnel.
Mechanical latches and/or locks are currently used for locking drawers, cabinet doors, and appliances and covers for appliances but they can be difficult to latch and unlatch and cause wear on appliance or cabinet surfaces. Mechanical key locks cannot be opened when a key is lost or a combination is forgotten. There is a need, therefore, for systems that allow the locking and unlocking of cabinets, drawers, appliance doors, appliance covers, and the like, that are easy to lock and unlock, minimize wear on appliance and cabinet surfaces, and that can optionally be opened, if necessary, even when locked. The present invention fills this need in the art by providing for an apparatus, systems, and methods for locking two surfaces together. The system, apparatus and method are based, in part, upon recently developed correlated magnet technology.